the lowdown

Keith says: Everything we hear from modular companies is about speed of construction. And saving time, saves money. But if you take that on a oneoff house, how does a quicker builder actually end up saving money?

Some preliminary costs or bank finance costs but in the main it just means the mortgage gets drawn down more quickly than in a traditional build.

Where the true cost savings should come from is in reduction of waste, through standardisation of panel sizing and layout and obviously repetition of the same template. How that works with planning permission for different sites in different parts of Ireland is a whole other challenge.

As I stand here now, I also don’t see how it impacts in the cost of finishes or fitouts, so it really just comes down to the structure but yet the groundworks, services, landscaping, driveways, pavings, boundaries and the likes are still all required.

Would it save 10 per cent, I currently doubt it to be honest, but I always do like being proved wrong. Any comparison we have done to date has shown no difference whatsoever when apples are compared with apples.

I can see developers saving money as they can save on the cost of finance in a development which has multiple units, but on a one-off I just don’t see a saving.